| The Present |
"Awake and Present, same-same" by Ajahn Sumano Now, I want to introduce you to an extraordinarily simple way to awaken to the present: the present is the Path to the Spirit. It is your present! Begin by closing your eyes and holding your breath. Hold your breath only as long as it is comfortable to do so. What you will discover is that this activates an enhanced awareness and puts the thought process into abeyance. It grounds to a halt the train of compulsive thought that provokes the confusion we often experience. Of course, you can only make use of this technique for a minute or so. You can't hold your breath long enough for it to become a practice. But now that you know how this feels - this feeling of being In the present - you can use it as a template. Next you can learn to slow down thought through carefully watching your mind, this will eventually allow you to stop all thought. You will know when this happens from remembering how you feel in the present moment when you hold your breath you will have experienced a taste of the present moment. When you are in the present moment you will have arrived into your life-stream; you will be present. Present-moment-awareness will come to know the still, tranquil mind. The template-of-presentness which you now know will become indelible. You can use this throughout your life to breakout from the past and future. In the next stage of your practice you will find a sound ringing in the background of your mind. This sound is the existential background sound that rings in the silence. Turn your attention towards listening for "the sound of silence". As soon as you turn toward the sound, you should feel both the body and mind relax and settle down onto a cloud of calm-tranquility. This is the core of meditative prayer. As I said earlier, silence is the heartwood of all religions and is the quality that lifts the mind into the Heart. Immersing in silence brings about relaxation and subdues thought. The mind is strengthened. This strengthening can and should be called "boon". It is this strong, "boon-full" mind that is able to meet anything and everything with clarity and fearlessness. Finally, after you have spent some dedicated time becoming proficient in inclining towards the sound of silence, you can develop another stage in which you turn awareness towards noticing change. At this stage, you could benefit by doing retreat under the guidance of a skilled teacher. Now is the time to begin by holding your breath. Recognize that this is the right time to begin your spiritual life phase or your wouldn't be reading this page. Right in this lifetime, in this mind-moment, beginning from this present moment onward. The time to begin is always only in the present moment. The time to free is always in this present moment. You can use the stopped breath technique to deal with pain. Simply by momentarily holding the breath, pain is diffused, it is reduced significantly, and the natural healing process is able to get on with its work. When the breath is held there won't be the struggle to avoid or run away that signifies the arrival of fear. Have your child use this technique while visiting dentist or doctor, he or she will be surprised to find that the feelings of pain that we usually try and run away from lose their intensity and transform into interesting sensations. The fear factor that pain has held over us can no longer generate dread or fright. Fear can no longer intimidate. Whenever we are in a painful situation all we need to do is hold the breath just long enough to allow the pain to diffuse so that the natural healing process easily engages. Simple is profound ...ah,simplicity With this practice we will learn what-things-really-are. We will shift our priorities. We will become aware that much of what we do, we do out of habit. We pursue habitual, culturally indoctrinated activities rather than truly meaningful pursuits. When we notice this we begin to let go of the unnecessary activities in our life and begin to invest more and more time and energy into what needs to be done. The truth is always in the here-and-now, when you are awake; you are in the learning mode. When you are awake you are present. The present is the mother of the future. Living from present moment to present moment frees us from the past. The heavy karma of the past resolves itself. "...and the painted ponies go up and down. We're all trapped on a carousel of time." by Joni M. Karma You may be still be asking yourself, is Karma real? What and where is it? Karma is real. As discussed earlier, it is the positive and negative stuff that sticks to our life stream. The karma we accumulate is entirely the result of the personal intentional choices we make. It must be stressed that all karma is born out of intentional action. This aspect makes it clear that we are the creators of our karmic destiny...this is Natural Law. We make the choices (these choices are not exactly free as they depend upon the boon, which chooses our choices!). When we act with generosity and selflessness, and these actions lead to feelings of satisfaction and contentment. We also do foolish things, and this leads to feelings of regret. That's just the way things are. Karma is a real energy mechanism that is impersonal and immutable. Wherever we go our karma comes along. I can guarantee you that you are here right now as a result of your karma. After this life-span where "you' go depends entirely upon your karma. To bring home the point as powerfully as I can, I will elaborate. The karma we accumulate is entirely the result of the personal intentional choices we make. It is born out of intentional action. The positive and negative energy that is left behind from our intentional actions sticks to our life stream. This is a Natural Law. The choices we make are directly dependent upon our boon. We perform acts of generosity and selflessness, and this leads to feelings of satisfaction and contentment. We also do foolish things, and this leads to feelings of regret. That's just the way things are. Karma is a real energy mechanism that is impersonal and immutable. Wherever we go our karma comes along. I can guarantee you that you are here right now as a result of your karma. After this life-span where "you' go depends entirely upon your karma. Bad karma (dire/unskillful karma) is the energy that, even before its fully ripened, can produce a terrible rebirth. Here in this lifetime we can see how often and how painful ill-fated relationships can be. We all know of violent, jealous, exploitive, loveless, deceitful, sexually abusive, STD infected, ill-fated relationships, etc. These come about as a result of negative karma. Negative karma is also the force behind extreme poverty, low I.Q., frail health, and chronic bad luck. It is much of the force behind road accidents, theft, sexual molestation, and "being-at-the-wrong-place-at-the-wrong-time". If you wish to produce karma leading to these kinds of events and relationships all you have to do is live carelessly, abuse drugs and alcohol, lie, cheat, be greedy, selfish, or lethargic. We can call this life at the periphery...life in the darkness. Whenever there is a lack of circumspect awareness at the time we perform a deliberate action, problems are likely to arise for ourselves and for others. All intentional activities carry a karmic risk. The result of this kind of negligence (rather than attentive-alert-awareness) drives us into fumbling behavior. It may be simply an improper, ill-timed comment or gesture. It could be an exaggeration, sarcasm or a comment intended to disparage another person. The net effect of this inappropriate response to a situation will be a sense of disharmony and unease. Again, we can rely on the Law of Karma that operates with unbiased justice. It guarantees that good karmic energy produces a good rebirth. All acts of goodness contribute to a favorable rebirth. We can characterize it as the storehouse of beneficial energy which, when ripened, lead directly to favorable living in this life and the next ones. "Consider the state of the world and reflect upon the good fortune to be somewhere where bombs don't regularly explode around us, where bullets don't whiz by us as militia fight civil wars, where people don't disappear, where we can access sufficient food and clean water, where our children our likely to live in safety and attain an education, where we have the right to speak our truth. Many, many people live in this world in such wretched poverty that all they can manage to do during a brief life span is to survive and procreate. Recognize that you are in a temporary situation that can provide you will the opportunity to serve yourself and all other Beings." by Ajahn Sumano There are six possibilities, or six worlds, where we could be reborn, which are known as "realms of abiding". Some of them you really don't want get trapped in at all. You may not have recognized that you have visited these realms already. You have. For they are, at the least, psychological states of being. You have experienced them in this life when you were caught in rage, jealousy, hatred, etc. There are hell realms that simulate being addicted (craving for something continuously but never getting quite enough), or simulate physical or psychological slavery (feelings of having no freedom whatsoever. There are hell realms into which beings fall that simulate a desolate, desperate poverty realm where pain and hopelessness goes beyond the imaginable. These are negative mind states that produce heavy karmic repercussions. There are also beautiful, concordant realms of mind simulated when we are living skillfully in harmony with Nature. Then, the mind is free from wanting and free from fearing. You have visited these realms when you felt compassion, love, and generosity. You have visited them when you sacrificed for another, when you fed a stray dog or cat, when you dropped a coin into a homeless or disabled person's cup. I want to prevent you from falling into the hell realms. Uplift your life by employing skillful ways of living in this world. Unskillful ways of being in this world are very, very dangerous. Because foolish activities are the major determinant responsible for driving us spinning into the next life hell realms. On the other hand, spiritually dynamic activities have value in this life, as well as the next one. Much of my motivation in presenting this holy tool KIT. is to help as many beings as possible to understand the value of wholesome mind states and the impact it has on our life and on our death. Then, to point to ways you can replace unenlightened, coarse habits of mind with enlightened ones. This web site is designed to provide you with the opportunity to circumvent the worst possible case scenarios. Being born a human is a phenomenal event, in itself. More so if we are born with all our faculties intact with and the emotional and intellectual capacity to explore and investigate our lives. All of us have been born into an environment where we have in abundance all four of the requirements for life: food, shelter, clothing and medicine. That surely signifies that we already have great deal of boon going for us. We are in an ideal position to skillfully continue our evolutionary journey. And we are in a position to earn an auspicious rebirth. We would be very foolish to blow it all. The Kit I have assembled is for some Earth beings that have all this "good stuff" going for them. The other billions of humans on this planet are outside of our ability to serve in this way. They must bear the great difficulties and challenges involved with their karmic predicament. Life is just too overwhelmingly tough for them. They know only the day-to-day struggle. We can all do our part by sending loving kindness to them and sharing the boon accumulated through our goodness. Protection We all need protection from falling into some of these lower realms that are also present right here in this life. Sophisticated people may look upon themselves as post-modern, scientific, rational, educated and intelligent. None of this conceals the fact that most of us are ridden with fears. Subconsciously we all recognize just how frail and vulnerable we are. Even a small accident causes great pain to our body. And as for our mind, we are battered with pain continually. We feel pain when we don't get what we want, when we get what we don't want, when others demean us, when we are not appreciated or respected, when we are deceived, when we clash with loved ones. There is some ancient "software" that works for people like us. Since we can't walk around in a suit of armor not relating to others or lock ourselves up in a vault, what can we do? The answer is simple: we can control our actions and by so doing we can refrain from doing/indulging in the unnecessary and unworthy. The standard I use is to refrain from killing things, minimizing the use of drugs or alcohol, refraining from adulterous relationships, and speaking positively are boundaries that keep us out of trouble and are means of providing protection for ourselves. This is a model of protection that have been recommended by wisdom grounded people in all cultures, in all religions, in all times. These are all modes of protection that have been recommended by wisdom grounded people in all cultures, in all religions, in all times. It puts us in alignment with the appropriate realm that we humans need to abide in. When we are well protected, we can block out the unskillful energies, which exploit our weaknesses. Be it addictive substances, sensuality or whatever. With a bit more strength to work with we can avoid a lot of personal distress and avoid troubling our friends and family. Kindly work to incline your life towards lives natural harmony. Getting Going The Kit I have assembled is for some Earth beings that have all this "good stuff" going for them. The other billions of humans on this planet are outside of our ability to serve in this way. They must bear the great difficulties and challenges involved with their karmic predicament. Life is just too overwhelmingly tough for them. They know only the day-to-day struggle. We can all do our part by sending loving kindness to them and sharing the boon accumulated through our goodness. On the cassette tape that Is part of the Kit, you will hear several monastic reflections chanted. The chants have been adapted for your use. You will easily be able to chant along with them and soon find that you have them memorized. Once in memory you can make use of them to enhance protection and increase your understanding of "the-way-things-are". The Loving-Kindness, or Metta Chant The first and last chant on the tape is the loving-kindness or Metta chant. You will find that by inclining your mind towards loving-kindness, ill-will will be converted into positive energy. As remnants of ill-will dissipate, loving-kindness will take anger and convert it into compassion. This is the way to banish hostility from your life and replace it with friendliness and goodwill. This chant will help us to heal emotional scars and brings us to a point in time when we can forgive and accept the pain that we, previously, had not been able to bear. This is a kind of "fast-tracking" through time and space. When we become capable of forgiving we mature spiritually. This is something that will just happen on its own as one moves out of the past and relinquishes concerns about the future. In the present, wisdom and compassion lead our life out of the ruts and limitations of the past. Chants on "the-way-things-are" The next chants on the cassette tape Included In the Kit are reflections on the- way-things- are. Reality in metaphysical terms is just this; things come and go and are dependent upon other dependent conditions. Where they go depends upon underlying conditions. Those of us in the human realm will leave this condition and be driven by our karma and boon to the appropriate abiding. Chants on the brevity of our lifetime The tape will provide you with a perspective on time and the fact that we are continually run out of it. "The days, weeks, months and years pass quickly. Ask yourself, how well are you using your lifetime?". Protection Chants There are several chants on the tape asking the "devatas" to watch over and protect us. The notion that there are angels who can look after us and protect us from harm is part of our intuitive psyche. They are acknowledged in just about every culture. We can assume that there are angels who recognize the difficulties and dangers we face and endeavor to shelter us. If there are no such angels we lose nothing. In fact we become rather more humble in acknowledging the vulnerability of our situation. Meditation and Silence The last segment on the tape is a guided meditation, incorporating aspects of all the major spiritual traditions. It will be a tape you can make use of your whole life to remind yourself of the point of this life and where to find true meaning in the midst of this seemingly crazy world. This guided meditation will help you develop tranquility, strengthen the mind and will lead you toward Insight. It will open your life to new vistas. |
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